The marketing and selling of audio visual components or so-called home electronics components has changed dramatically with the introduction of the so-called home theater systems. Specifically, instead of purchasing stereo or high-fidelity audio equipment, television sets, video cassette recorders and DVD players separately, consumers often purchase these components together as an integrated system. Further, consumers may also enhance their existing television by purchasing a sound system that is coupled to the television set and that may include an amplifier, a subwoofer and/or anywhere from 2 to 5 or more additional speakers. The amplifier, subwoofer and speaker systems may or may not include a DVD player. Some systems are sold with a specially designed stand for housing or supporting the television, amplifier, subwoofer and other components such as a VCR or DVD player. Further, the currently available speaker systems vary greatly in size and dimension.
As a result, the retailers of consumer electronics are presented with a difficult task in terms of displaying or demonstrating the currently available home theater systems, accessories and supplementary components. For a consumer to appreciate the sound qualities of many systems, the speakers must be arranged so that they are directed towards the consumer. Because the size of the speakers vary greatly, retailers often must construct custom shelving for individual brands or styles of speaker systems. Further, retailers must often build or create separate shelving systems for those home theater systems that include a subwoofer, which should be disposed beneath the television set or monitor and those systems which do not include such a subwoofer. Additional space beneath the television must also be provided for a center speaker, if one is provided with a system. Further, many home theater systems include rear speakers which, to be appreciated, must be mounted either overhead or behind the space where the consumer would be standing when demonstrating an individual home theater system. Shelving may also be needed for an amplifier, DVD player and VCR.
Consequently, standard shelving systems that are currently employed by electronics retailers are simply unsatisfactory for demonstrating and displaying home theater systems and other audio visual components used to complement consumers' existing home theater systems or consumers' existing television/NVCR/DVD systems. Because the style and type of audio visual components is constantly changing, it is not cost efficient for retailers to custom build shelving for a particular system because the size and dimensions of the system will inevitably change from year to year in response to consumer demand and in response to technological developments.
Accordingly, a need exists for a multiple configuration shelving system which can be easily reconfigured by retail personnel for displaying different audio visual components such as different home theater systems.